Will Blackouts Cause the Bills to Go Up?

The short answer is Yes and No.

If you used the same amount of electricity this month as last month, the bill will be exactly the same as last month. Your electric bill will ONLY go up or down based on your usage.

Lamar Electric rates will not change. Your bill is simply the rate multiplied by the kWh used, as recorded by your meter.

Lamar Electric does NOT buy wholesale power from ERCOT at the daily market rate. In 2019 Lamar Electric took bids and signed a three year contract with a third party broker. Our wholesale price for energy is locked in through 2022. You may have read about ERCOT paying as much as $9 per kWh for companies to generate power. This was an attempt to prevent rolling blackout, but it did not work. The good news is this will not affect Lamar Electric members.

Transmission Expense (high voltage transmission wires) component is a much smaller wholesale power expense and is based on our share of operating the transmission line across Texas. This expense can vary each month. As transmission expense changes, our PCRF (Power Cost Recovery Factor) will change a bit each month. The PCRF has been a CREDIT of 3/10 of a cent per kWh for the past several months and will be the same next month.

The Lamar Electric residential retail rate is 9.742 cents per kWh plus a base charge of $12.50 per month. Reduce this rate by the credit PCRF and the result is 9.442 cents per kWh, which includes all Transmission & Distribution charges (TDU). Compare this to people on Oncor who pay about 3.9 cents per kWh for TDU and charges of about 7 cents per kWh of energy from one of the retail energy providers (REP); which brings their total to about 10.9 cents per kWh plus a base charge. Lamar Electric is very competitive compared to most REP offers in Texas.

Often people purchasing power from a REP will lock in a short term (3-6 month) rate with a REP and those folks will likely see a pretty good price jump when they go to renew their contract. Lamar Electric members will not experience such a jump. Lamar Electric is a Non Profit Cooperative, owned by our members and Lamar Electric is continuously looking out for our member owners.